Differentiation
by Bananafish II
Summary: Every member of the Twilight Town Disciplinary Committee knew their place. Seifer was the leader, Rai was the muscles of the group, Vivi was the smart one, and Fuu was serious. But what happens when Fuu finds a glowing stone in the Underground Concourse?


Differentiation

In which Fuu gets up to her eyeballs in things she has no idea how to ideal with.

All rights to their respective companies. No copyright intended.

* * *

To Fuu, the Underground Concourse was the most beautiful place in Twilight Town. In its deepest depths where the runoff from every overflowing flowerpot and rain gutter in Station Heights converged into a murky channel before flowing to the sea, there was nothing but the fragrance of flower petals, the faintest brush of wind, and solitude. There, staring past flickering lamps at the orderly brick ceiling, Fuu could forget about things like being the best in her class and fighting Hayner's gang. There, where few people went, the world had been quiet and unchanging.

On that day, however, something changed.

In the gloom of the tunnel, a pale glow surrounded a jewel in Fuu's hand. It had been soft and dim when she first saw it, just bright enough to catch her attention from the shallows where it was wedged between the bars of a grate. When she picked it up the glow grew brighter, and when she examined it, it grew brighter still.

This was not to say that the stone itself was glowing. There was a clear difference, Fuu knew, even if she had little idea what the stone was, exactly: the jewel was green. If it had simply been a glowing stone, the _light_ would have been green, but the ring of light around it was white, illuminating the pearlescent surface. It had an almost physical presence where it met her skin, like a current dragging grains of sand out to sea.

She allowed herself a smile. It was magic, of course. Though it hadn't looked very magical stuck in a sewer grate, there was no doubt about it. The jewel - a sphere just small enough to fit in the palm of her hand - was something magic. Maybe it was a regular gem with a magical power inside of it, maybe the stone itself was some kind of crystalized magic, or maybe she was completely wrong and it was something else entirely, but it was definitely magic.

_Vivi would know_, she thought. The little mage was a genius when it came to spells. When Seifer's gang hung out at his house, he did all the cooking. He could ice, dice and flambé without lifting a finger. Every time a new volume of _Omega Arts for the Master Mage_ arrived at the town's bookstore, he would vanish for days at a time and return to the disciplinary committee as though nothing had happened, his head stuffed full of new spells. Although he wasn't much use in a Struggle Match, he could more than hold his own in a straight-up fight. She remembered sparring with him, feeling her movements grow sluggish from a slow spell, the teeth-gritting frustration of floating weightless when she was just about to land a hit, and the utter, nauseating disorientation that followed in the wake of a full-power stopza.

She had yet to beat him.

The room was suddenly illuminated by a blinding flash. The stone grew hot in her hand and she threw it to the floor where it bounced along the bricks and flickered out. The room was plunged into darkness.

Fuu laughed darkly and took a moment to appreciate her solitude before kneeling down. For an instant, the stone knew her better than she knew herself, though she never would have admitted it. Above all else, she prided herself for her emotional control. To fall apart over something as stupid as not being able to beat up someone was...

"Ridiculous" she spat as she ran her hands across the bricks. Her fingers closed around its cold surface and the glow returned.

She leaned against a wall and ruminated for a while, watching the ripples of the channel flicker and flash in the jewel's light. Seifer would be overjoyed if he knew, she thought. Magic equaled power, and if there was one thing that he would enjoy more than stomping Hayner's gang into the ground, it would be stomping them into the ground twice as hard. Rai would want to try it out, in which case he could go find his own magic. And Vivi...

She imagined what it would be like to shoot blasts of ice out of her hands, or to summon a windstorm with a flick of her wrist. Launching Hayner over some rooftops would be a nice bonus, but what she cared more about was the look on her friends' faces - especially Vivi's.

Satisfied, she rose to her feet and stretched. Vivi didn't have to know, she decided. If there was room for more than one warrior, then there was room for more than one mage. _Vivi's soft_, she though. _He'll understand_. At the center of the room she held the stone out before her, and focused.

* * *

_I'm slipping. Something's wrong with me. _It was all she could do to keep from smiling as she entered Seifer's apartment and shut the door quietly behind her.

With a bedroom that had just enough room for a cot and a closet, a bathroom with only a toilet and a shower, and a living area that doubled as a kitchen, Seifer's place was best described as "cramped." Despite this, it was squeaky clean. As the leader of the Twilight Town Disciplinary Committee, whose sworn duty was to maintain order as they saw fit, it wouldn't do for him to have a messy house. Fuu had entered on multiple occasions to find him washing dishes or cleaning his laundry with a washboard, muttering about what Blondie would give to see him like that.

"Oi! Fuu!" called Rai without taking his eyes off the television screen. "Blondie and Chicken Wuss were giving Seifer and me a rough time and Vivi was off doing magic tricks or something. If you were there, we'd totally've beat them, y'know? What gives?" As he spoke his fingers twitched against a game controller like they had minds of their own.

Fuu rolled her eyes. He didn't look too banged up. Without a word, she sat down on the couch next to Seifer, who was beating the crap out of Rai by the looks of it.

"What's up, Fuu?" he asked. Though he kept his face locked on the television screen to keep her from seeing it, his left eye was dark and swollen.

_Would that have happened if I had been there?_ she wondered, but brushed it away. "You know." She shrugged. "The sky."

He smirked. "You're chipper. Something good happen?"

It was sarcasm, Fuu knew, but something good _had_ happened. She had stayed in the concourse until the evening lamps flicked on and managed to make some progress. When she focused long enough the light separated from the stone and became a sphere that floated and bobbed in front of her. It wasn't that impressive, but it was a start. Surely it meant that she was a quick learner, she'd told herself.

She considered telling him about it.

"No."

He laughed and flashed her a grin. "Whatever. You don't have to lie to me."

She shot him a look. It would have been so easy to tell him right there, but Seifer's attention shifted and he mashed on the controller even harder than before. Rai was looking more distraught by the second.

"No. No way, man."

"Yes way!" Seifer shouted triumphantly. "I've got you beat!"

"No!" Rai slammed a button even more franticly.

"Yes! Oh man, yes!" Seifer flicked the joystick and punched one of the shoulder buttons on his controller. His character rolled just out of Rai's reach.

"No! No! No! NO!" Rai yelled as he tried to roll away as well, only for Seifer's character to clip him with a gun blade, knocking off the last bit of health from the display at the top of the screen.

"YES!" Seifer threw both of his hands in the air as Rai's character let out a death wail and fell to his knees in slow motion. The results flashed boldly across the screen: P2 WINNER! "Now _that_, Rai, is undeniable proof that I've got the skills to pay the bills!" he crowed and leaped to his feet. "Now pay up!"

Rai dug through his pockets, grumbling while Fuu watched dispassionately. It wasn't anything new: whenever Seifer didn't have enough munny to pay his rent, he challenged whoever was willing to a game. He didn't do it too often and it added some intensity to what Fuu thought was a pointless pastime.

Rai slapped the munny into Seifer's hand and slumped on the couch. "How 'bout a rematch?" he asked hopefully, "y'know?"

"No," said Seifer.

Rai bit his lip and scowled. Fuu didn't feel too bad for him, though: they probably earned twice what he'd just payed in the disciplinary "fees" they collected each week.

His rent secure, the disciplinary committee's leader slumped back onto the couch and let out a sigh of relief. "Good game, Rai. You had me worried for a minute there."

Rai shot him a look and gave him a brotherly punch in the shoulder. "Damn right I did! You only killed me 'cause I ran out of health, y'know?"

Seifer stared for a second before letting out a raucous laugh. "_Seriously_?" Fuu chimed in, which made him laugh even harder.

"Man! What is _up_ with you today, Fuu?" He stared with one eyebrow raised curiously. His smile was nothing like the one he wore when they picked on Hayner's gang, Fuu noticed. It seemed to come easier. "You're actually..." he stared intently at her face like he'd find the answer there before turning to Rai.

His face was screwed up incredulously. "Dude! She's actually _joking!_"

She lifted an eyebrow. Was it really so weird? Seifer was plenty sarcastic. Rai and Vivi could be, too. It wasn't like the guys had a monopoly on it. "So?"

"So?" repeated Seifer. "You're not like this usually! It's…" His long fingers swam in the air, searching for the right words. "It's awesome! What happened?"

She laughed, caught herself, and felt her face flush red. It was only then that she noticed how far away the door was.

"C'mon," said Seifer, "spit it out."

_If it's "awesome," you might as well tell him. _

The thought occurred to her, but she pushed it aside. It was a dangerous thought. It was like someone else was whispering things in her head. The Disciplinary Committee's focus, she often reminded herself, was not with things that were "awesome," but things that required discipline. In order to _carry out_ their form of discipline, therefore, at least one member had to _be_ disciplined enough to know when to focus. Rai and Vivi were childish and she could count on Seifer to drop whatever serious task they had to complete if it meant fighting Hayner and Roxas, so she made it a point to be focused enough for the four of them.

_But you found the jewel. That oughta' wake them up. _

She opened her mouth and drew a blank. Seifer eyed her strangely. _What would they say?_ she wondered. _What _would_ they say?_ She'd been so sure in the underground when the light was pulsing and bobbing before her, but as soon as she wasn't completely focused everything fell apart. How would Vivi react? How would Seifer react if he took it badly? If there was one thing he cared about apart from fighting Hayner's gang, it was efficiency. Infighting would make them less efficient, and fighting over some glowing stone was one of the stupidest reasons for fighting that she could think of.

_So learn how to use it. Vivi can't argue if there's no contest. _

She pushed that figment away, too, but not as quickly. This, she knew, was stupid: though Vivi was the youngest of the Disciplinary Committee, it would take her years to catch up with him. And even if she managed to catch up, he was still a part of the Committee. He wouldn't vanish if she somehow managed to beat him. With everything as it was, she reasoned, she might as well keep the stone a secret.

"Nothing. No thing."

"Whatever. You don't have to lie to me," he said again. But this time, he was serious.


End file.
